Vikas Sharma

The first reservation that Sara made for us when I arrived, permanently in Vancouver, was for Maenam; a very cool looking joint that appeared to have an authentic Thai menu in Kitsilano.

One of the factors that Sara is looking for are plenty of vegetarian options, as I’m a a flexitarian; mostly veg, with some seafood (muscles, clams, shrimp, oysters, and squid). For the record, Sara eats almost everything.

With Van being new to both of us, the question about how to get around comes up quite a bit. We bought a new car when we arrived to start the move-in process in November, but we wanted to try out the Seabus, which is a three-minute walk from our place by the Lonsdale Quay Market … so we did and then cabbed it to the resto.

As we entered, the atmosphere was relaxed and made for a lovely date night out. The service was equally impressive as the vibe of the place.

I typically wouldn’t order wine at a Thai restaurant, but we had a couple of different reds, by the glass, which were fine.

The food was quite good.

Our choices for the evening were: Papaya salad, Thai wafer with grilled scallop, Bean curd salad, Stir fried purple eggplant, and Veggie pad thai.

What I liked was that everything was fairly light, even the pad thai, which I usually don’t order in Thai restaurants because it’s too heavy. But this place has got the recipe down pat.

Favourite dish might have been the Stir fried purple eggplant – really flavourful and not bogged down with any sauces; just garlicy and fresh tasting. But, the most interesting dish was probably the Bean curd salad, which was served with herbs, roasted rice, toasted chili, fried shallot, and a lime dressing … super tasty.

While the above items were the true winners of evening, I don’t want to take away from our enjoyment of the Papaya salad, which had a nice amount of spice from the bird’s eye chili, neither the grilled scallops, which were quite flavourful (cooked with coconut and lime leaf).

I would return – but there are so many places to try out over here.

Moving forward I’ll leave a score and a return (or not) comment.

Maenam gets a 7/10 – and anything above six is good in my books.